Waiting on God, Praying Through His Word, Resting in the Lord. - Highlight Episode 335

The discipline of waiting on God, once deeply valued, has been lost to the distractions of social media and constant stimulation, making true solitude rare. Ray, E.Z., Mark, and Oscar recognize that silence forces us to confront our hearts; yet, believers often use digital distractions to escape rather than seek revival, healing, and conviction. Knowing God goes beyond scripture—it requires abiding in Him through intentional stillness. Jesus emphasized the importance of stepping away to rest in God’s presence, teaching that spiritual strength comes from solitude. Unlike secular mindfulness, Christian solitude is not about emptying the mind but filling it with God’s thoughts. Practical ways to cultivate this include setting screen-free times, taking walks without a phone, and prioritizing time with God over entertainment. Though difficult, the effort leads to a deep and abiding relationship with the Lord, free from the noise that seeks to pull us away.

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Ray Comfort
Emeal (“E.Z.”) Zwayne
Mark Spence
Oscar Navarro

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, friends.
Today's topic is why Christiansstruggle with silence and
solitude.

Speaker 3 (00:08):
Because they know you .

Speaker 1 (00:10):
I give no unrest, do I?
It's something that when welook back, I think in church
history, at least in thewritings of men of old, it was
something that was emphasized.
It was almost kind of a givenyou wait on God.
It was almost kind of a givenyou wait on God.
I mean, you look at thejournals of some of the greats
and they were filled withindicators that they sat with

(00:32):
the Lord, they waited on theLord.
And it's difficult, I mean, I'mguilty.
I have a hard time sitting insolitude.
I've had to discipline myselfto be consistent in prayer.
I have accountability.
I have a brother and I.
We text each other prayer handsevery day after we've spent
time in solitude and in prayer,because there's just something

(00:55):
about FOMO, right, the fear ofmissing out.
That's why I love reading onplanes, fomo.

Speaker 4 (01:01):
I've never heard that Fear of missing out.
No, I fell, as I've missed outall these years.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
They haven't told me Fear of missing out.
It's something that we, asbelievers, must get back to, I
think, to have walks with Godthat bear that depth and that
richness.

Speaker 4 (01:19):
Silence is golden.
So we're talking aboutsomething that's totally
unnatural for human beings,because you put any human being
into solitary confinement, oftenthey go insane.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:29):
Because they so need fellowship.
We've got fellowship with God.
We're talking about silence andhow important it is.
It's something we shouldappreciate, and I didn't really
appreciate the fact that I canactually have silence until I
met a lady many years ago.
She was an elderly lady.
She was standing on a sidewalkand a guy started his motorbike
and it wasn't a Japanesemotorbike, it was American,

(01:49):
which means it was very, veryloud.
It burst her eardrum and shespent the rest of her life with
screaming in her ear.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
24 hours a day.

Speaker 4 (01:58):
Every time I met her, she just said it's still there,
it's still there.
It's driving me crazy.
So we shouldn't be afraid ofsilence, but be thankful that we
can have silence.
Just get someone to be with theLord.
When we talk about waiting onGod, what do you get from
waiting on God?
Easy?

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Well, I think your strength gets renewed, like the
word talks about.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
The wings as eagles.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, you get revived , you get perspective, you get
healing.
Like Oscar was talking aboutconfronting those things that
you just don't want to confront,to let the Spirit convict you
and put His finger on things inyour heart and in your mind.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
We talk about God speaking to us through His Word,
but do you hear the voice ofGod when you're waiting on Him?
Is there a time when you hearGod speaking to you?
I don't mean audibly, but justabout things in your life.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, I mean, I think , conviction through the Spirit,
you know not, yeah, like you'resaying, not in an audible way
or in a way where it's likerevelation, but yeah, just, I
think the Lord does it throughnatural means, as we're seeking
him, as he brings things back tomind and heart and gives us,
you know, thoughts and ideasthat relate to our lives.
Silence is nothing else butwaiting for God's Word and

(03:07):
coming from God's Word with ablessing.
Wow, yeah, sitting and waiting.
You know I love theincorporating of Scripture in
prayer.
In our times of Salted Oscar,that's a big part of a lot of
worship traditions, wherescripture is incorporated into
worship.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
It's done every day by millions through the Lord's
Prayer.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah that's true.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Right, Oscar.
Yeah, that actually brings itback to the question that you
asked earlier, which ispractical steps.
What do we do?
And I think it's important torecognize there's a difference.
Right now, one of the mostdownloaded apps of 2022, I think
was the mindfulness app, whichis more Eastern view of silence
and solitude.
So there's definitely a desire,a secular desire, out there.

(03:53):
Nowadays, if you buy an Applewatch, it's got like a breathing
mindfulness app built into it,so everybody's looking for this.
So then it begs the questionwhat does silence and solitude
in a worshipful way?
How does that sound differentthan just mindfulness?
The practice of mindfulnessthat's more rooted in Eastern
traditions.
Right, and I think we've talkedabout this too which is to empty

(04:16):
your mind, is mindfulness, butsilence and solitude before the
Lord.
There's a next step to that.
It's not about being alone,it's about being with God.
You empty your mind from all ofthe external distractions
phones, internal distractions,the thoughts that are in your
own mind and then you fill it upwith the thoughts of God.

(04:38):
And one of the practical wayswe can do that is, just before
entering into that silence andsolitude, either spending time
in God's word or spending timepraying through God's word,
praying through the Psalms,praying through anywhere in the
New and the Old Testament.
To turn God's words into yourprayer words is a great way to

(05:02):
prepare yourself to sit in thepresence of the Almighty.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Opening.
You know, if somebody says Idon't know what to pray, pray in
the Word of God.
I mean almost any text you comeacross you can pray in.
You come across something likeJudas went and hung himself and
you go.
Lord, help me not to ever getto that place where I feel like
my only avenue of escape is togo do that dastardly deed right.
It doesn't matter what text itis, you can pray in the text and

(05:29):
you can be focused.
I did this kind of unusualexercise today on the way to
work, where I was thinkingImagine if the Lord granted me
the ability to pray anything Iwanted to pray from the moment I
left my house to 30 minuteslater I'm at work.
And he was going to say yes toeverything.

(05:50):
I'm about ready to pray, wow,and I consumed my mind and my
thought with this could be myvery last day, my last
opportunity to pray, and I foundmyself so focused on my prayers
and careful with what I waspraying.
It's like somebody says give me$100 million, you'll see what
I'll be able to do.
Careful what you pray, right,don't say anything.

(06:10):
I know Ray wants to buy tracksfor the whole world, but the
idea of what we're praying, thatwe have the bent ear of God
when we talk to God, that wehave the bent ear of God when we
talk to God, you can't get thatin the midst of the commotion.
Right, silence your commotionbecause God's not going to
compete with your commotion.

Speaker 4 (06:30):
And I was looking at Psalm 62, verses 1 and 5.
Truly, my soul waits, silentlywaits for God.
From him comes my salvation.
So if anything should make uswait silently on God, is
meditation on the fact that Godbrought salvation to us,
salvation from death, expressedhis love through the cross.

(06:50):
That should keep us silent.
Yeah, this is what SamuelChadwick said.
The soul, isn't it great.
I hope you enjoyed that.
The soul is never less alonethan when it's alone with God,
isn't?
that good, that's deep, oh, lessalone Never less alone, never
less alone than when it's withGod.

(07:12):
In other words, you're notalone when you're with God ever.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Richard Baxter the Puritan, the theologian.
He said Noise is not strength.
A still and quiet Christian isoften the strongest Spurgeon, he
said.
There is no better cure for thesoul than to be alone with God,
and solitude is not an absenceof something but a presence of
someone.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
There's an addictive behavior in every single one of
us, and when you start this newspiritual practice, it's going
to be hard, it's not gonna.
The fruitfulness of the rewardis it might not be instantaneous
, but the reality is it remindsme of what Augustine said, which
is that our hearts are restlessuntil they find their rest in

(07:59):
you, god.
And so what, ultimately, we inthe Lord mostly are inviting you
to is to find the rest thatyour soul is desperately seeking
, and that is something that isjust.
It's going to take time for youto understand Amen.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
You go to like bare minimum, right, Bare minimum.
What you need right now isaccountability, which means, if
you're convicted by this rightnow solitude with God, shutting
out the noise, sitting with theLord you must communicate about
this with someone right now.
So that's your first step.
I'm gonna talk to a brother,I'm gonna talk to a sister, I'm
gonna talk to my wife, myhusband, and I'm gonna say I

(08:37):
have this problem and I want toget it right.
Will you please hold meaccountable?
And then, from there, what youdo is with that person, you
chart a course Again, just likethis brother and I.
For six months now almost, wehave had a commitment to send
each other prayer hands everytime we finish our prayer time,
and it's become a routine andit's beautiful.
So we established anaccountability mechanism.

(09:01):
So do that and then, from there, begin to weed out the things
that distract you, Identify themAgain.
It's not about getting rid ofyour phone altogether.
It's about how do I not let myphone control me, how do I not
let social media control me?
How do I not let work controlme?
For those of you workaholicsout there, you must put the

(09:24):
priorities in order.
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(09:47):
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